Congress does votebank Politics over death of 8 Muslim SIMI terrorists

NEW DELHI: Congress and leftist parties including CPIM are questioning the authenticity of the police ‘encounter’ in Madhya Pradesh, which led to the killing of 8 SIMI terrorists who broke off Bhopal central jail yesterday morning after killing a jailer.
Even as senior Congress and other opposition leaders alleged the incident was planned, or questioned the manner in which the terrorists were killed, the ruling BJP painted their questions as implying disrespect for those who die in the line of duty.

The 8 Muslim terror under-trials had scaled the prison walls with the help of a “staircase” made from bed-sheets and wooden logs, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhoopendra Singh Thakur told The Hindu.

According to him, the escape took place between 12 midnight and 3 a.m. and all the eight undertrial prisoners were “killed” by 11 a.m. on Monday. Police said the escapees used sharpened pieces of steel plates to slit the throat of Rama Shankar, head constable, on guard at the jail.

Just a few hours into the incident a section of the media that is virulently anti-Modi began drawing sweeping conclusions ignoring the past history of SIMI and the fact that a jailer was killed by these terrorists before they met their fate.

There can be no justification to extra-judicial killings. But the need of the hour is to wait for clarity to emerge from the enquiries that have already been ordered.

While some anonymous videos question the state’s story, news agency ANI, for instance, has posted a video that conforms to the police version that locals had spotted the SIMI activists and alerted the police, who rushed to confront them.